masslive.com/news offers real-time news, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week from The Republican newsroom and MassLive.com staff.

School districts plans vary on Obama speech

Sunday, September 06, 2009

By MICHAEL McAULIFFE

mmcauliffe@repub.com

President Obama's plan Tuesday to speak live to school
children across the country is being greeted with both
enthusiasm and caution in the Pioneer Valley.

School superintendents in Springfield, Chicopee and
Northampton support showing the speech live, though in two
of the districts principals will make the final decision for
their individual school and, if the speech is shown, parents
in each of the three districts can opt to have their
children excused from the viewing.

In Longmeadow and the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School
District, however, the speech will not be shown live.

Obama is scheduled to speak at noon, and the White House
has said the president will speak to students from coast to
coast about the importance of taking responsibility for
their education and challenging them to set goals and do
everything they can to succeed. The speech will be carried
on C-SPAN and can be viewed over the Internet. The
Associated Press said the White House plans to put the text
online Monday for parents to read.

Longmeadow Superintendent of Schools E. Jahn Hart said the
district does not have the technical capabilities to carry
the address live for all students, and that administrators
will discuss the speech at their weekly meeting on
Wednesday.

"We're not going to be showing it live,"
Hart said.

Hart also said some parents telephoned her office and
principals in the school system with concerns about the
speech.

"I think there's some folks who are wondering
exactly what the message is," she said.

M. Martin O'Shea, superintendent for the Hampden-Wilbraham district, said a number of teachers are interested in showing the speech and that a telephone message was sent to families in the district which stated that teachers were asked to preview the speech "to make sure it was a good fit" for their students....